Today, the timely delivery of electronic information has become increasingly important to the core operations of many businesses in the global market. Many companies have expanded their operations throughout the world, and as a result, rely on the ability to transmit information from one place to another in a short period of time.
With the enormous capability of computer networks to communicate information between remote locations, business travelers continue to depend on these networks for the delivery and receipt of information while on the road. Furthermore, not only is the capability to deliver electronic information important to a business traveler, but so is the ability to access and print that information at a convenient location. For instance, a business traveler in a hotel may need to print an electronic mail message, correspondence, presentation, or other documents from his or her laptop while on travel. In order for the business traveler to obtain a hard copy of the document, he or she may have to print it to the hotel's printer. With the present technology, the business traveler would have to take several steps before a document may be delivered from the laptop to the hotel's printer. For instance, in one situation the traveler may have to first obtain the network identification of the printer and information about the type of printer, and configure the laptop to connect to the printer before printing may occur. Alternatively, the traveler must provide the hotel staff with a disk, memory stick, key or other file storage medium containing the document. This results in time delays based on the availability of hotel staff, as well as security and privacy issues due to loss of control over the file. Further, if a document has been prepared using specific software and the hotel's computer does not have that software or the latest version of the software, then the document may not print, or it may print in a different format or quality than that to which it was originally created.
Many businesses today transmit information through electronic mail. Sending electronic information over the Internet has become increasingly prominent in even the basic operations of many corporations. However, the use of email for delivering information could be problematic, as email is usually produced in an ASCII based format that is not compatible with many other forms of complex documents. Furthermore, the delivery of information through email requires the recipient to possess an email account and the necessary application on his computer in order to load, view, and/or print the document. Finally, security and privacy issues also arise in this context, as the delivery of a file to hotel staff by email can result in hotel staff having access to confidential, personal or otherwise sensitive information.
Although many companies typically transmit information electronically, it is often more desirable to business travelers to receive such information in hard copy form. Currently, there are several methods for delivering hard copy information, including Express Mail, Federal Express, and UPS. However, these types of services have many drawbacks. For instance, a recipient may have to schedule a time for pick-up that may not be convenient during travel, delivery of the document may be delayed, the document may be lost in the process of delivery, the recipient has to wait a period of time for the document to be delivered, the document may be damaged if not packaged properly, and the cost for prompt or overnight delivery is high.
Current methodologies for transmitting and printing information have already been introduced into the marketplace, such as those developed by Gecht et. al (U.S. Pat. No. 6,859,832), Bradley et. al (U.S. Pat. No. 6,466,328), and Adamske et. al (U.S. Pat. No. 6,615,234). However, these prior systems usually require the recipient to have a computer and the appropriate application to receive, view, and load a document. Furthermore, these prior art systems may not be able to provide security for the data during transmission. In addition, these prior art systems may not be able to provide high quality color or black and white printing of the data. Other systems, such as that described in Keeney et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,748,471), require the user to recall a document-specific identification code, and they plug into existing hotel printers and thus require knowledge of specific printer capabilities. In addition, they do not solve the problem of security.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved remote document, storage, access, printing and/or system. This document describes attempts to solve one or more of the above-listed problems.